Blog Archives

Hi Everyone, I hope you’re having a great summer. I’m just about to ‘shut up shop’, recharge my creative batteries, and get down to the serious business of writing a new romance. Here I am in my ‘summer writing room’, under the awning in our garden, waiting for a fresh mug of coffee to be delivered!

TO CELEBRATE SUMMER

I hope I’m allowed an ‘author brag’ moment here, as I would love to share how Girl in the Castle has performed during this brief promotion. I’m a great fan of OUTLANDER so imagine how thrilled I was to be rubbing shoulders with Diane Gabaldon in >Scottish>Romance. And it didn’t stop there, I also shared a spot with Colleen McCullough’s THE THORN BIRDS, one of my all-time favourite romances. It feels like all my hard work is beginning to pay off.

Then, I found myself on the BEST SELLERS list next to Jenny Colgan and Peter May

So, as I said earlier, the clock’s ticking. You have until Sunday am (BST) to download Girl in the Castle. After that, it reverts back to £2.50; although you can read it FREEon Kindle Unlimited and Amazon Prime.

It doesn’t seem possible that almost five years have passed since we launched New Romantics Press. At the time, we each said: “We’ll be happy just to see our novel in print.”

Since then, we’ve been bitten by the writing bug and gone on to write further novels, win accolades, reach the finals of a prestigious book award and achieve bestseller status (historical romance>Scottish) on Amazon. Not to forget, hosting a wonderful book launch at Waterstones in Kensington. Between us, we’ve written ten fabulous novels and gained a host of readers who are hungry for more! With four new novels in the pipeline, we thought it time to thank our wonderful readers/supporters and to celebrate our achievements by uploading a Kindle book, containing the first two chapters of each of our novels to share with you.

The Kindle is almost a novel in its own right – almost forty thousand words in all!

So . . . if you have never read any of our novels, now’s the time to

TAKE A CHANCE ON US

Within the pages of the Kindle you will find: romantic heroes and heroines aplenty; men in kilts, cowboys, Victorian Misses, Twenties Girls, Wild Irish actors who bear more than a passing resemblance to Pierce Brosnan, feisty heroines who live on remote islands in the Atlantic, academics, priests, enigmatic heroes – and women ‘who love not wisely, but too well.’ In short, ten ideal summer reads to take to the beach with you – a book for every mood. Click here to read an extract/buy/share

January kicked off with a BANG. New Romantics Press put on their best bibs and tuckers and headed to Lunnon Tah-an for Jill Mansell’s Book launch. There we bumped into many fellow RNA members who’d wandered over from another book launch to join us. A great time was had by all and we went away inspired to finish our WIP in 2016.

Read on to see if we achieved our goal . . .

In February, our baby boy Jasper was 20 and he received lots of cards. One from a Facebook friend and reader Lotte Sutton in Australia, which was such a kind thought. I just hope he appreciated it. He’s 21 on February 2nd 2017 – I predict that there might be a little celebration on that day involving the Bridget Jones DVD, cocktails, canapes, cake and coffee. All the things he likes (cough, cough).

card made by crazy owner

the bad boy himself

Adrienne and I have both had parents who’ve died from cancer, so we decided to raise some money for HOPE AGAINST CANCER, in their memories. In February we organised a literary lunch at swish Kilworth House Hotel, gave a hilarious (if I say so myself) talk about writing romance – and raised over £500 for the charity.

I also gave a talk on self-publishing to the Birmingham Chapter of the RNA, and to students at De Montfort University during February. March was a busy month, too. Apart from it being my birthday, I made the final of the Exeter Novel Prize with Scotch on the Rocksso we took the caravan down to Exeter and fitted in a spring-break holiday after the ceremony. I took good care of my precious trophy, but a certain person thought the award belonged to him!

Margaret James, Sophie Duffy, Me, Cathy Hartigan

the finalists

Jasper’s prize

April was rather more family orientated as it was my father-in-law Geoffrey’s 90th birthday which we celebrated in style. A moment to cherish. A friend of long-standing, Maggie, who regularly buys several paperback copies of my novels and POSTS them to Australia (at great expense) joined us for the celebrations.

I got stuck in with the WIP and vowed to finish it before Christmas.

May was a busy month with the fabulous Romance in the Court which Adrienne and I attended. Passing through St Pancras I bought something in Aspinall’s and, after talking to the manager, we were invited back to hold an author event there in November.More of which in part #2. I’m looking forward to attending the same event in May of 2017, thanks to Goldsboro Books and David Hedley.

a view of one half of Cecil Court

Next, I gave a talk in Chippenham, to aspiring authors to prove to them that self publishing was within their grasp and took along novels which New Romantics Press have published to make my point. Where there’s a will, there’s a way.

What we didn’t plan on last year, was trading in our caravan for a slightly bigger one with a FIXED BED. But that’s what we did, two days before we set off on our month’s stay in Bonnie Scotland . . . No more setting up/dismantling the bed every morning so we can have breakfast. I’ve also gained more writing space, so #winwin. Just writing about it makes me long to go on the road again.